To Kill a Shadow: Library Edition

I really enjoyed the character's the premise and the journey. But I got confused along the way and still Don't understand some the core ideas. I liked the journal notes but they we're hard to follow on a whole cohesive piece. 

Taking me into another world, Katherine Quinn, I can only wait to learn what happens next. After slipping into Kiera and Jude's world for less than 24 hours, I emerged on the other side. It was a pleasure to read this. I never would have predicted the villain! Looking forward to reading the continuation of Kiara and Jude's story, especially with Jake on board!

To Kill a Shadow was almost an impulse purchase because of the pretty sprayed edges on the hardback first print run. I want all the pretty books these days.But then I decided to check out the audiobook on Libby as it was available now through my library.Rating SystemC- 7A- 8W- 7P- 7I- 7L- 6E- 6Total- 6.9 = 3 ⭐️I don’t know if it was the narrator or the story itself, but I could not get a grasp on what the heck was going on. I had restarted it on audio after a couple chapters because I had no clue what was going on. Then, after getting three chapters in again, I stopped and placed a hold on the ebook version. Instead of waiting 4 weeks for it, I waited a day. That was a nice surprise. So I started over from the beginning a third time.It was a little easier to understand and go along with the plot on the ebook. The whole premise is one of the factors that drew me to this book (ahem, the other being the cover. What can I say, I like the pretty ones, ha). The dark and brooding Knight commander, and the girl who has been a treated like an outcast in her village for the past decade; having to join forces to work against a mysterious dark force. Sounds intriguing, yeah? And the whole atmosphere… barracks and training ground to spooky woods. Honestly, the mist reminded me of the mists in From Blood and Ash series combined with the poisonous fog in Hunger Games. Has total potential.But then we get to the actual characters. Their behaviors belie their ages. I was shocked and then irrationally annoyed when I found out Jude was 19 - yes, 19! He is definitely portrayed as a 30 year old, at minimum! Unless I somehow managed to miss a description on how young he is, his whole demeanor screams 30s, not teenager. Not just Jude. It was very easy to forget that all the recruits are also teens. Too many characters hold secrets. It was honestly a little confusing to try and keep up with all the nuances of the plot sometimes, especially with the letter snippets in the chapter headers. The book entertained me enough to keep reading, but there were a few times that I checked the percentage read, and thinking “I’m not halfway through yet?” or “still not close to finishing??” After reading an 800 page book with no issues or feeling as if that was too long, I definitely had that feeling with this book and it’s half the length. That unfortunately did lower my enjoyment for this book.While finding out who some of these unknown characters are mentioned in the chapter header letters (or maybe it’s just one character all along, mentioned in the epilogue?), I’m not exactly jumping at the bit for the next book at the moment. I’ll put book two on my release calendar and go from there, I think.